In an online game enjoyed by participants through a network, different from an offline game, as adversaries are generally at remote sites, it is very difficult to search the adversaries. Namely in the online game, although the adversary is a man, at present a means for making it possible to easily find out an adversary is not available, so that a participant in a game depends on promise with his or her friend or accidental encounter in a chat room or the like in finding the adversary for the game.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. HEI 9-164271, a network game system making it possible to smoothly shift from ordinary communications to those for an action game is disclosed. With the network communication game system, it is possible to easily find out an adversary from a broad area by using the ordinary communications, but it is required to find out the adversary at random with a complicated means of dialogue using letters by activating a game device and a chat device each time it is tried to start a game.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. HEI 11-57215 discloses a network game system for playing a game match among an unspecified number of participants on a communication network comprising a server device having a user information storage means for storing therein information for a plurality of participants, a game match requirement response means for differentiating, upon receipt of a requirement for a game match, users having transmitted the requirement for game match from other users as that queuing a match, and a player selection processing means for deciding a combination of users having been differentiated as those in queue for a game; and a client device having a game match requirement means for outputting the requirement for a game match to the server device.
In the network game system described above, the player selection means in the server device automatically selects players for a game, so that the work to be performed by a player to select an adversary for the game is not required, which improves the convenience a little. The client device constituting the network game system also comprises a player requirement means for outputting a requirement for a game to the server device and also for receiving the player requirement transmission timing information specifying timing for transmitting a requirement for a player from the server device; and a player requirement means for outputting, at the timing specified by the player requirement transmission timing information, the requirement for a player to the server device and also for receiving information for the player from the server device, so that the client device can process the information for specifying the timing in selection of a player, but can not start the game immediately like in an offline game.
An object of the present invention is to provide the capability of starting a game immediately at any time like in an offline game by automating search for a game player (or a participant in chat) in an online game or an online chat system, especially in an online game played by participants who are online users.